A Story Analysis of Demon's Souls 

"You will never see an NPC travel between archstones" *Patches enters the chat*

I don't know, I miss Demon's Souls' variety in bosses. It had this enjoyable freedom from convention. If anything, constant leaning towards "bosses are only hard, bossfights should not be able to be outsmarted, boss arenas are fair and wide" is what I'm growing tired of in the later entries. When you equip a silencing ring to beat the blind warrior boss, it's like being in an ancient myth, in a fantasy novel. When every boss is just a combat challenge it is kind of immersion-breaking, very game-like. Not a single archstone past the first one has a combat-oriented arch-demon, and that's lovely. They're all gimmicks, they're all weird and memorable. Astraea can't even fight you, Storm Lord is just this weird sky beast. And, after looking at the cut content exploration, the Sixth archstone finale had this weird circular dome room, its walls made of pentagonal ice panels, and you know what, I've always been *incredibly* curious what that arch-demon might have been like.

I think the boss design choice is what split the souls fandom. Bosses in the latest titles have been more about a big spectacle and difficulty which leans it more toward and action game. Where as the earlier titles really had a sense of overcoming the world and its inhabitants. I still say dark souls 1 was the closest to blending them both.

All the bosses were like puzzles. Most of them had tricks that you needed to figure out. That was the beauty of it. You can't compare a first game with newer Souls game mechanics that literally didn't exist in 2009. It's like using a computer from the 90s and being like "This isn't as powerful or well made". For its time, it is a masterpiece.

Personally I really love the bosses in Demon's Souls them being a last huzzah for getting through the level instead of a kick in the pants is just more my style. For me the meat and potatoes of souls games for me will always be exploring the levels and not the bosses which is probably why Demon's Souls is my second favorite souls game. Thanks for helping me put my feelings into words on this game.

14:33 Demon Souls came out before the series’ marketing banked on the “difficulty” sales pitch. Miyazaki in one interview back in 2011-ish was asked about why he made his games so difficult. He corrected them, saying that the purpose of the game [Demon/Dark Souls] wasn’t to be difficult for the sake of difficulty, but to challenge the player and give them a sense of satisfaction when exploring the world. After all, discovery doesn’t mean anything if you didn’t have to work for it. Whether the development team succeeded in doing so is subject to debate, but that’s another argument. So yes, the bosses were meant to be part of the level, rather than a separate entity to serve as a flashy challenge (at least in Demon Souls). The design philosophy did change as the entires went on, which left some fans of Demon Souls behind.

Demons souls has such an indescribable amazing atmosphere. There's just something about it I can't put my finger on, but I think it's the games best quality that sets it apart from the rest of the series.

The idea of supernatural creatures existing simply because a great number of people believe that they should has always been super intriguing to me, similar concepts are used in the Percy Jackson series and Chainsaw Man (two series I never thought I would compare to demon souls)

The first two games did not at all "pride themselves on their difficulty", the difficulty was simply a means to create a sense of achievement.

My theory for the bosses has been for a while that the strategy of the Old One isn't just "big monster go smash," but that it very intentionally has its demons corrupt/possess/take the form of whatever a particular land most believes in or respects, whether that's a god, a saint, a king and his round table of knights, or a royal sage of incredible knowledge. That way, before they ever have to do any violence at all, many people just walk up and willingly offer their souls to them without a fuss. Then they can send those husks out to hunt other people's souls and bring them back to their masters

Oh my goodness. I'd love to see seperate video's for hollow knight and blasphemous. Like on a soulslike level, I don't think any game does the dark tone as good as blasphemous and is genuinely one of my favourite soulslikes.

It is also interesting to understand the context this game was originally released. With a sea of games that were oversimplified to the point of being boring (in a vacuous attempt to make them more "accesible"), many of us were about to abandon the medium. Then, this strange Japanese game with exactly zero "anime vibes" suddenly appears out of nowhere and dares you to complete it. For many of us, it was a challenge we could not back from... And while it had many flaws and was far too punishing at times, it was everything we were asking for and more. Truly, this game was revolutionary at the time.

Really surprised you were disappointed with this game. Jank and limited mechanics compared to the future entries aside, it's one of my favourite games of all time and I place it as superior to Dark Souls in many ways. I respect your opinion though, I just don't agree on it being "just decent".

When playing foundational games it is important to go in with an open mind and try to see the origins of the things you love about the newer entries. I was lucky enough to play this back when it came out and simply saw it as it’s own thing without all the expectations the series had put on it. I encourage anyone who wants to play it to do the same. Think of it like looking at one of your best friend’s childhood photos or something.

Saying the game is decent doesn't feel fair

Playing it when it first came out with no expectations beyond being hard was transcendent.

Probably my favorite thing about Demon's Souls is the ending. After all these other vague or mysterious endings in the other Souls games, there was something uniquely satisfying about making it through all of Boletaria's challenges and having your character straight-up just save the world (or ruin it, if that was your choice). It's uplifting, if a bit more played out in terms of plots. It was also nice to have a similarly hopeful and satisfactory final boss and ending for Elden Ring as well, and not just "it's all a cycle, lol".

Ah, you seemed to have missed talking to Freke and Urbane, after the path to the Old One is open, they say some very interesting things. Urbane says he hears a awful cry, like from a child. Freke asks you to kill the Maiden in Black for her power.

Demons souls was a brilliant game for its time. While parts do not hold up well, all the fromsoft games we love wouldn’t exist without the trials and tribulations of it. It’s interesting to look back at aspects of demons souls that they used in future games

11:30 death isn't a complete reset of progress, you keep all of the items that you gained before you died and your souls are left on a bloodstain where you died so you can pick them up.

the level design is what keeps me looking forward to replay the game, i find the gimmics on bosses fun til this day tho, i just wish there were more bosses bc its so fun to feel like "they are stronger but we are smarter" and finding out how to overcome it, i strongly agree with ppl on the comments saying that its funnier if its less of a fighting game and more of a fitting and rewarding puzzle

Gimmick bosses are my favorites in this game and it's a shame that FromSoftware has focused less and less on them as the series has gone on. It's funny that Rykard ended up being one of the most memorable ones for the community in Elden ring despite not being that challenging and being more of a spectacle whereas Malenia, which primarly challenges your mechanical skill ended up being more divisive amongst the fandom along with hundreds of other ER bosses that require basic roll and punish gameplay.

Calling Demon´s Souls a (only) "decent" game has to be the biggest slander I ever heard on this channel.

As janky and unpolished as this game is, I absolutely adore it, not just as a start to an entire genre of games, but as a piece of art in of itself. The fact that a game that was considered a failure both by Sony management and it's own developers managed to turn out this good is something I will never not be amazed by. The game even at release had tons of bugs, glitches, and wasn't even properly finished by the end of it (The Lost Land of the Giants). However, Miyazaki and Fromsoft had a vision and they stuck by it to the end, and it paid off.

Demons souls has great atmosphere. Not as good as bloodborne but this is the og souls game besides kings field. Gotta pay respect to the original souls game.

Weird fact about the Dragon God: its what kills you in the Tutorial if you make it past the Vanguard

I never really cared for the whole "it isn't difficult so it sucks" argument the community has, since they all seem to crave needlessly high damage numbers over actual stories. Things not being difficult has really poisoned Fromsofts game design choices and it's honestly a shame.

Great video, though Upper Latria not having any shortcuts is not true, you destroy the chains so the doorways in the tower aren't blocked by walls of flesh anymore. Also, this is probably just a personal take, but I think calling Demon's Souls bosses "gimmick" bosses is kinda condescending, those gimmicks are what make each fight memorable in some way. I feel like with DS3 we got to the point where most bosses were basically the same, long endurance tests after you died to them enough times to memorize their attack patterns, and DeS is the exact opposite of this.

The armoured spider is literally a model someone at Fromsoft made that they used because it looked cool. The exact same model is seen in their other game Ninja Blade which came out around the same time and I doubt there's a lore reason it exists there either

I highly recommend you Blasphemous next, it has a very good, deep and dark lore. You will enjoy being the penitent one.

I can’t believe how quickly you pump these out, amazing. Love all your FROM videos so much!

There's one point that Gingy weirdly forgets to mention or is unaware of in this video: FromSoftware - at the time of developing Demon's Souls and Ninja Blade (a game which bombed painfully) - was in the slow verge of financial bankruptcy and possible company closure. As such, a lot of Demon's Souls is reflective of that: a beautiful, experimental and messy climb up through developing a spiritual successor to avoid company death - literally a quality product of constraints. A lot of the issues Gingy has with Demon's Souls are almost all linked to this, like Yuria not being expanded (NPC quests), the lack of boss cohesion with the level, and the lore not being elaborate. As you may understand, it's hard to figure these things out with such a tight circumstance (e.g. budget, time, etc.), which naturally forced the development team to focus on gameplay elements (e.g. enemy and level design, gameplay loop, etc.) over thematic elements (e.g. story, lore, etc.). This can be plainly seen in the data-mined game files for Demon's Souls, and has been discussed many times in interviews post Demon's Souls release. Even Miyazaki said that Demon's Souls did not get the benefit of a flourishing game development cycle, which Dark Souls 1 and Souls games after had (except for Dark Souls 2). Thinking about all the hurdles the development team had to go through to develop Demon's Souls, it's astonishing that Demon's Souls exists. As such, comparing it strictly to Souls games released after is kind of ignorant, considering that - if Demon's Souls was not successful/amazing for its time - what Souls games we have now would not even exist to compare Demon's Souls with. Shit, *we wouldn't even get Armored Core VI*. Stop and think about this for a moment. If Demon's Souls was not developed, we would've just had Ninja Blade (which sucks arse), and FromSoftware might've closed around 2010.

Demon's Souls is still my favorite FromSoft game. It is just so special and memorable, and has some of the coolest and most unique mechanics that never appear again in future titles, such as world/character tendency. And I really like how each archdemon fight is so "weird" and novel; with most of them being copy and pasted with a new coat of paint in future titles.

9:35 Patches goes from Archstone 2 (Dragon God) to Archstone 4 (Storm King)

I do not agree, Demon Souls has the most cohesive and immsersive game world opposed to other titles, it really comes close to bloodborne, in fact bloodborne's story is sort of a reboot of demons'. It's a world thats grounded but still very much dark fantasy and evocative. It's also the game with the freshest ideas, with dark souls and even elden ring borrowing many themes and ideas from this game's story. Demon Souls remains the best in terms of lore and coherence. Do not trash talk my precious little boi :c

There are absolutely short cuts to the Maneater boss fight.

I think the reason how Doran locked away is because he was always there and they just locked the door. It said in game that Doran is the guardian of the twin swords and where we found him is problably his post. So when demons invaded , they problaby just locked the door and forgot about him

I’ve enjoyed all of these retrospective videos (even though I haven’t played many of the Souls games). I would love to see one on the Fable series cause I remember playing Fable 3 when I was a lot younger and didn’t understand most of it, being able to see a look back on all that would be cool

After playing Dark Souls 1 & 2. 2 when it came out I tried Demon's Souls next and I honestly love it more then Dark Souls 1 - 3 storywise I really love it from the lore to the bosses it's awesome! Demon's Souls and Bloodborne for up there for me.

Demon souls being my first souls game , blew away on so many levels , but I can understand your perspective as someone who came from later installements of the genre .

Saddens me that you were pretty mixed on this game as it's my second favorite souls game. I think it's spectacular

Interesting. This person didn’t account for the industry’s state when DeS was released. This game changed the entire field. It’s not going to be the same reviewing it in 2022, as you miss a lot of the genuine sense of feel that existed at the time. You might have better luck reviewing old Call of Duty games with your style to be honest.

It's been funny to me that my only real joy in having a decent gaming rig, Ryzen-style, has been being able to emulate this game, since I haven't had a console for years. This was the greatest game of its time. I never got halfway through it back in 2009, but I knew it was the Future of games, just like the first time I played Minecraft in alpha.

Calling this game just "decent" is baffling considering that every subsequent game by FromSoftware just exploits its formula barely adding anything actually new to it. From here on out, it's just more stuff, more weapons, more cryptic lore, more traps, more ganks, etc, but the core gameplay never changes, save for Sekiro. I've only got the chance to play a remake of it but even so I could appreciate its novelty and see just how safe and derivative Dark Souls games have been.

I actually found the bosses of the game (most of them anyways) to be very interesting and a selling point of the game. They each have a gimmick and thus a different method in which to defeat them. Problem with this is, once you learn their weakness, the challenge is almost eliminated. Demon's Souls level design is fantastic in allowing you to have a quick path to each boss-fight after exploring a level that takes 30-50 minutes to clear, but because of the lack of challenge provided by most of the bosses due to leveling eventually making you simply stronger than them, or their fight is heavily reliant on a special feature that--once exploited--massively reduces their difficulty, it hurts the game's presentation a little bit. This game had not gotten any balancing of any sort, which is its biggest issue. It's the very first souls game, thus comes off very experimental in the gameplay department more-so than anywhere else. While the remake made the game look incredible (despite what some people like to believe), it hardly touched the gameplay at all (in fact, adding an option to send items to storage on a whim destroys one of the game mechanics, which lessens the RPG feel for me), and so the bosses remain in the same boat. Using the Adjudicator as an example to make the boss a much bigger threat (and a more interesting fight), let's say he wields both of his blades when you first enter the arena, and the bird on his head is covered by a helmet or the fleshy remains of the head. In order to actually damage the boss, you would need to focus attacks on its already-cracked sword, which would eventually break and lead into the Adjudicator receiving the massive wound on his body. You'll then be able to knock him down and destroy the head, revealing the bird. This would outright be my favorite game (before Elden Ring) had the developers worked on balancing the player character and also gave each boss more to work with so they could be a serious threat even on repeat playthroughs. I love the game for what it is, but it's a shame that it didn't receive the same love it does now by the developers when it was first released. And even worse, BluePoint didn't seem interested on expanding the game from what it was originally, thus it just ends up being the same experience, just prettier.

I played this when it first dropped and I can honestly say, this game made me who I am today. 🤞🏾🤞🏾

a nioh retrospective would hit, loving the content, keep them coming!

You know what man, every video I’ve watched of yours has been phenomenal, you’ve earned a sub, keep up the great work

I think the charm of Demon Souls on release was the mystery to it. There hadn't been many games like it before with that combined combat, difficulty, story telling and multiplayer style. I remember my first playthrough being so excited, because it was the first RPG that allowed you to use a spear like that. Honestly, though the difficulty wasn't that bad and the game seemed to get easier as it progressed. I think only the first two fights were really that memorable for being difficult, the only other fights I remember were the red dragon on the bridge, and the king when you return to 1-1. I was trying so hard to Platinum the game back when it first game out but the world affinity or whatever it was called became really hard to manipulate. It isn't hard to do in off-line mode but by the time I got to those trophies I was ready to move on. Also, the Valley of Defilement is probably one of the easiest levels since you can fall from the start down to the boss door, you just have to know the route.

Demons souls was my first souls game. when there was nothing else to compare it to, and nothing else like it: the bosses did feel like an accomplishment and it did feel like an amazing if slightly janky game. Each souls game did improve on the core features but I don’t feel they whiffed on these bosses or levels entirely. They just got better. That said…the NPCs did suck.

Your content is really good bro and entertaining, I look forward to watching all these types of videos

The demons are created based on the legends of that civilization. Boletaria believed in the strength of humanity, so their demons were based on their legendary knights, because Allant's reign had attained renowned prosperity. The Armor Spider could be a creation of the burrowers, it uses lava as a power source and its covered it elaborate armor, maybe part of the lost technology of the soul arts included combat golems and this is how people remembered it. The flamelurker is probably how people remember Big M, with the explosions being how people thought of his powerful punches and the magical damage of the gloves.

I think alot of the bosses having a puzzle gimmick that makes them significantly easier, or flat out needed to kill them, is neat. It makes the bosses feel like a capstone environmental puzzle complimenting the rest of the level they're in. Dark Souls 1 had this to an extent with Iron Golem, Smough & Ornstein, Nito, Bed of Unfinished Development and even Gwyn. Dark Souls 2 had it for the Lost Sinner, and Ivory King in the final DLC. Bloodborne never had any as far as I remember, and Dark Souls 3 had Yhorm, and arguably P1 of Abyss Watchers, although the AI made that a very mixed experience due to unreliability. Elden Ring has Rykard as a gimmick fight but without a puzzle, like a more refined version of Yhorm. Mohg's And Margit's shackles can also be counted as a way to trivialize thier P1's if you have enough damage. But, in both cases here, the bosses still maintain the same core rythm as the rest of the game. Godskin Duo tried to replicate the success of O&S but fails miserably due to both enemies being agressive, having ranged attacks, and the pillars being extremely unreliable ways of dealing with the rolypoly mechanic of P2 Noble. Now, this makes every fight in Elden Ring feel very... Same-y after a while. There's no fight even in the side dungeons where you can use an environmental piece like a trap mid combat, or de-aggro the boss using stealth items and talismans, or even kill it before fight properly starts with clever positioning. Every single fight is designed to test you on the exact same parameters: dodging and using limited windows of opportunity to strike the boss. This gets put to obsurdirty by the insane damage and health pool spikes of later bosses. Now, this makes it so every fight feels cool and imposing the first time you get to them, but on repeat playthroughs or, if you're very thourough on first playthrough doing nearly all the side content, the combat loop begins to feel more stale as there is no bosses rewarding you for thinking outside the box. Example; Old Hero in Demon's Souls. The boss is blind, so only reacts to sound you make and a snap lockon to your most recent location if you hit him enough, then back to searching. Due to the level before him making you appreciate cover and using the Thief's Ring if you have one, the realization that the Thief's Ring makes you virtually undetectable by the boss unless you attack his ankles for too long makes you feel like you achieved something. Same with the Storm King afterwards. There is plenty of cover, maybe you have a bow or you're a spellcaster in which case you bait the small rays in one at a time and kill them. Or, you use the cover to your advantage to explore the very strange shaped and large arena and stumble upon the Stormruler, letting you use cover, timing and an insanely cool gimmick weapon to dispose of the baby rays and then the Storm King. Compare to Rykard; the weapon is instantly at the start of the arena before you even trigger the battle. It weighs surprisingly little and has such low stat requirements I think every single class in the game can use it two-handed without touching Strength or Dex as stats. The bossfight, while my favorite spectacle in the entire game by far, then plays out like every other fight except you do insane damage and have insane range, but so does the boss. The pillars in the arena are not an advantage as the boss just destroyes them and his P2 projectiles go right through them, making them just a hazzle for the player with no benefit. If the upcoming Elden Ring DLC will have a bunch of side dungeons, I hope they make a few of those bosses more environmental puzzles than traditional fights just to add some variety.

You are a interesting dude, i like your stuff keep it up 👍

I really recommend anyone who hasn't to watch "The lost soul arts of Demon's Souls" by Matthewmatosis. It really shows why this game is special.

Ok, now imagine playing through these levels and fighting these bosses when Demons Souls came out and you had never played a souls game before. Now you can imagine why it was so fondly remembered. Of course later iterations mastered boss design and made a lot of things better, that's what you are supposed to do, learn and grow. The choice to have the remake be as similar to the original was a double edged sword. Great for the memberberries, yet not as satisfying for those who never got to experience it when it came out on PS3. Count me in the memberberry crowd, as the experience was like nothing I had played before. It's fun to go through it again and relive that.

I felt physical pain when he said that the world 5 is the best in the game

You are actually correct about your takes in this video to be honest. I played this game back in 2009 and thought it was so cool and I played dark souls. Playing the remake made me realize that this game is pretty bareboned compared to their other games lol. I know I shouldn’t compare it to future material but this game’s story is pretty much just a video game akin to 90s story and it just has a fraction of what they will put into dark souls Bloodborne or Elden ring. Anyway I liked it but it was pretty tounge in cheek lol.

Going back to play Demon's Souls after being a Dark Souls fan for so long (the original PS3 version); I saw it as a rough draft for what the first entry of Dark Souls would become. And I ultimately respect it for that.

Did the comments change your mind? Or did you change because they didn't like you calling the story average?

Do Fable first!!! I'm mentally itching for someone who does such great video essays like you do to cover my favorite series so badly! 😭

I wish you included footage from ps5 remake. Dragon fight is lot more epic and difficult in the remake for example

i recently started your videos man love your analysis on the dark souls games hope to see similar stuff for other games keep working hard

dude just keeps cranking out the bangers, keep it up!!

2022 here and the demon's souls multiplayer is still alive. Got wrecked in the Monk fight by several different play styles, and proceeded to win most likely against the A.I. with way too much caution.

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are my go to souls games. I believe Dark Souls has the better story, but Demon's Souls has the better atmosphere.

You are quickly becoming one of my favourite creators, thanks for the great videos man!

"prides itself on difficulty" does it? Didn't miyazaki say that the difficulty was just there to further suck you into the world? Difficulty was not what demons souls prides itself on.

Latria was pretty fun and frustrating back when the server was up. The boss would randomly summon you or another player as a black phantom in someone else run. just being there meant you were sometimes forced to invade someone else world. it wasn't just at the boss fight with the monk, it was throughout the entire world

I've really enjoyed your videos on the souls game thanks for your hard work! Just a random note Patches move arch stones no idea what it means just to point it out from your point at 9:30 . He can be found in 2:2 then 4:2, both times attempts to trick you. don't really change your point or anything about the world being isolated.

This series was great, thank you. I'd really love to see Mass Effect videos from you at some point as well. If, or when you get around to them though, I think you really should play the original versions of the games, not the remastered collection. That so called "legendary" edition really tarnishes the original look and feel of the first game, and the 2nd and 3rd games are vastly graphically inferior looking past higher res textures. When doing retrospectives, I genuinely believe it is huge disservice to a game _not_ to review the original version. (I was also very happy you played the original ps3 version in this video, too :D)

If you haven’t watched it already I’d highly suggest The Last Soul Arts of Demon’s Souls MatthewMatosis as a counter example to your video.

Awesome video as always , I would personally like to see an entire video on Hollow Knight. I played it for the first time at the beginning of this year and was blown away with just how fun it was. It reminded me of when my brother and I was kids and would stay up playing castlevania, ghouls and goblins and metroid.

"It's a game that is neither good or bad, just average" I feel like your review is coming from a place of privilege, seeing as you've played every other game in the franchise, you have a grasp of what the series evolved into but not on how it was, since many of the patterns you expect to see in a modern Souls game like Elden Ring are not there in Demon's Souls. As someone who has played through the series since Demon's Souls when it launched in 2009, allow me to give you some context. Lorewise you have to understand that this series started out with the foundation of telling an unfinished story. Miyazaki grew up on reading old King Arthur books in English, and because he wasn't great with the language, he could barely understand the plot and would just use his imagination to fill in the blanks. He said this in regards to Dark Souls but its really something that should be applied to Demon's Souls. In Dark Souls he had an idea of how the entire narrative played out but didnt overtly tell the players, in Demon's Souls, it is up to the players imagination to fill in the blanks, and it becomes canon to them. There's a lot of conjecture and hearsay when it comes to the lore of Demon's Souls and it was made that way on purpose. You get a framework of the world, and you get a lot of themes to invite you into certain headspaces, but you are never explicitly told what the colorless fog does, for example, or who or what The Flamelurker is. For someone with a lot of imagination, this type of story telling felt great. But I realize a lot of modern Souls fans want breadcrumbs leading to some Great Truth, like what we get in Bloodborne. The main theme of Demon's Souls (Demon's Souls as in Demon's-posessive Souls) is thought, and how mankind was given thought and clarity by the Old One, and when proven that humans are assholes, the Old One created Demons to take that thought away. The fog represents the absence of clarity. It is neither good nor evil, and the game eventually tells you this, but its necessary to have a few "Scary monster" demons like the Vanguard or the Armored Spider, to draw the player into a false sense of this is your average fantasy monster hunter game, with you the good guy, and the demons being demonic tropes. It's only until the end when you are fighting a literal maiden pleading for her life that you start to question your role in the story. As you explore Boletartia, reading item descriptions you begin to realize that the most heinous things about this world, happened before the fog even came. Witch persecution, war, slavery, poverty. Boletaria wasn't the shining utopia this poncy noble, who cant even fight, tells you it is. You learn from a dreggling that it used to be a lot worse before the fog, and some NPCs in positions of abject poverty say that they prefer it to be this way. Even with the fog, the most malicious demons of all- are humans in high standing. I feel like your take on the gameplay is also stilted, as we're used to these giant set piece bosses with a lot of reactionary dodging. Believe it or not, when Demon's Souls launched, a lot of players tried to fatroll through the entire game, the game not incentivizing rolling nearly as much as its successors. It was only by circumstance that fast rolling made the game a whole lot easier, which is why the Flamelurker had legendary status for being such a tough boss, because you were used to hiding behind a shield to avoid damage until that point. Now I suppose hes just a standard boss you'd see in Elden Ring, but he was a lesson in Demon's Souls. Many of the bosses are, and if you've played the other games, you already know the answers to them. Demon's Souls on launch felt like this weird pseudo MMO with an Online community who you could only hook up with randomly, like they were actual ghosts. And you would trade items or help or hurt eachother and you never knew when they were good, or bad. And you had to play online, there was no concept of a single player offline experience because at the time the Servers would influence World Tendency based on the date. The world would be lighter during Christmas time, and darker during Halloween. It was a surreal experience. Especially for its time. Certainly not average.

Do you have plans to do a retrospective for King's Field?

I really enjoyed these series, I’ll be waiting for your elden ring video once that game is complete, in the meantime please do blasphemous, I love that game too. Awesome work!

I played it when it was free for PSN members for a month. I can actually recall a lot but I dont have any real emotions attached to it, it just didnt have much impact on me. My favourite experience was definetely the storm king. I also remember running circles around miners to get backstabs because they were too tanky. Powerfarming on the necromancer in 4-2 and use the inventory bug to copy souls to be able to cast any spell or miracle in the game. When I think about it now it didnt do anything wrong to an extent to be called a bad game but DS1 immidiatly drew me in with its presentation and world while Demons Souls was just... ok? Great video as always! On the topic of soulslikes: Unless you want to specifically compare them I dont see a reason to to them all in a single video. I would still watch your videos even if they are only 10 minutes long.

Are comments being removed? I hope not nothing wrong with criticism makes us better

Good. Good video. I like it very much. Nothing else to add. I really like your "Retrospective" videos, now have a good day!

Great video quality on top as always! Would love to see you play hollow knight next it has such great lore and gameplay

great video as always. Cant wait for the other game series you'll make retrospectives on. I'd like to suggest Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen as well, not a perfect game by any means but decent enough.

Nice video man. Damn, I wish you did King's Field too.

Not a bad review! Now… this game is from 2008, it was a very different experience playing it back in the day. Unfortunately you cannot go back in time…

Considering the hype comments of the previous videos this one might as well be called “bad”. But it’s still OK to showcase one’s own opinion! Since this game is the original I love it, even without the retrospective view of having the other games it stands well on its own. The fact bosses are more “puzzle-like” rather than a test of reactions make it stand out. And Allant and Flamelurker are good predecessor’s to current games. I recently played the PS5 version. The PS5 version is very accessible rather than nitch (PS3). Having to deal with item weight, having load times vs instant changes the vibe of the game and most important of all, having multidirectional rolling vs tank 4-way rolling. IMO demons might have the best worlds to explore, grass>blood vials. But demons is not number 1 IMO, I’m too much of a boss lover, demon’s bosses might be unique but in varying qualities, and having to fight all of them on any% kinda takes away from the essence of the later games. No lugarius, no Champion Gundyr, no Priscilla. Its a bit of a buzzkill to see the lack of “100%” bosses with HP bars.

Hey man! Thanks for the videos! Since you'll be diving into different games, i wanna recommend a Souls-like game called "Code Vein", from the same creators of God Eater. Now for Demon's Souls, it was my first FromSoft game, and it frustrated me to no end, not because the game was bad (i didn't even get far enough into the game to be able to point out it's flaws), but because it was indeed my very first time in this type of game so i had NO EFFING IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING. I just kept playing the game not knowing where to go, what to do nor how to level up. Eventually i just quit the game. It wasn't until years later with Elden Ring announcement that i willed myself to give Souls games another try. Well, now i'm goddamn hooked and there's no way back lol

Hope you do a review of the remake mostly want to hear your opinion on the moonlight great sword of demons souls

I started watching your videos for the souls content, but your nuanced and articulate commentary has convinced me to watch more, I would love for you to cover Hollow Knight. Regardless, you have a subscriber and follower in me.

I enjoyed this video and your retrospectives on the other Soulsborne titles. I'd like to see this kind of video for Shadow of the Colossus (The Remake) and the Dragon Age series.

I would love to see your take on Death's Gambit and Hyper Light Drifter. The latter is actually one of my favourite games of all time, but I think both are underappreciated in their brilliance (although they definitely have some flaws, then again - they're indie games).

A video on Blasphemous and Mortal Shell would be great! This vid was fantastic!

I think one of the best things for the soul series was Demon's Souls being a Sony exclusive. Bc while I do find the lore interesting and has a lot of the Miyazaki quirks, it definitely feels way more typical to RPGs than Dark Souls. It falls way more into the classic story tropes of a corrupted and greedy king (he basically made a Faustian bargain), demonic forces corrupting the world and minds, and you being the hero. Unlike the later games, it's pretty much a clear cut good vs evil story. I feel like if Demon's was cross platform then they would have continued that storyline and Miyazaki wouldn't have been pushed to create brand new lore but with elements introduced in Demon's; creating the best of both worlds. So we ended up, imo, with a much more interesting story about life, fear of the unknown and death, destiny, etc in Dark Souls. Where there's really no clear right answers and the biggest enemy is just existence and time our relationship to all that; and is even accomplishing your goal a good thing? But killing Allant and putting the old one to rest is the clear right thing to do. And their motivations are purely done out of greed and evil. Gwyn may have been greedy in a sense but his actions (and of the other Lords as well) strike me more as fear and desperation. A very relatable feeling when trying to come to terms with how temporary our personal existence is. And I'm glad Miyazaki took that situation of not being able to make Demon's Souls 2 and expanded his writing past the cliche's of the genre.

I play this game at release and did not see any of this problems. Maybe if I play it now after all others Souls game I would think the same.

the lore of Hollow Knight is so deep and interesting, and I would love to see it get it’s own video to itself with your style of analysis! keep up the good work, ive been absolutely loving these videos

9:27 Patches is an NPC who can be encountered in both 2-2 and 4-2. ;)

i played the ps3 version in 2020. My good friend was in the souls series since 2016. He made me play the game and i got hocked. The original tower knight music is the best theme. The remake had new sound so no tower knight track. All in all one of the best experiences ever and got me in to the souls games, bloodborne, sekiro etc 🎮👍

Interesting how Saint Astraea was the vilest demon but paradoxically was the closest to "God" out of the clergy NPCs

I'd love to see a story retrospective on blasphemous, I've only got one story summary recommended to me so far about it and would really enjoy a retelling in the Gingy style, integrating the gameplay and obtaining a less convoluted of the story along the way. I wouldn't skip a Hollow Knight retelling, but feel there are plenty lore overviews unlike blasphemous and it isn't as convoluted as a dark souls game, so I feel it might be redundant in comparison to other videos you've made. What I am very interested in, maybe more than a blasphemous video, is a "the Surge" story retrospective as it always stood out to me as one of the first major dark souls "clones" with a truly unique premise. But as soon I started hearing about it, it also seemed to disappear. I'm very interested in what happened to the game and what happened IN the game, as I'm clueless but interested in both of them. *Edit: I just scrolled down to find my comment in the wild and have since learned of the folly of my actions. The imagined grasslands of sunshine and flowers has turned into, as all things Miyazaki, a toxic hostile swamp. Just wanted to do my part in turning the world into a friendlier place by telling you that no one I've seen makes content like you do and that I've enjoyed this video, along with all other of your videos I've seen, thoroughly.

Yes please, I would love to watch a Hollow Knight retrospective. Also I really enjoyed the Soulsborne retrospectives/reviews they are so high quality and genuinely interesting. It's nice to hear someone's real opinion and someone unafraid to point out faults. Good work, can't wait for whatever you make next!

My stance on the bosses for demons souls is that if you played it on original release the bosses were very intimidating. But then once you figured out the gimmick or had the right gear they became a piece of cake.

Its funny to see people like you completely miss the point of demon’s souls and in turn souls games in general lol